Description: A national Cotton Queen competition was started in 1930 to encourage interest in the cotton industry. This was an annual three week event which was held in Blackpool. The winner would then spend a year travelling around the country promoting cotton at exhibitions, fashion parades, public events and organisations. The first winner was a girl from Glossop named Frances Lockett who worked at a mill in Hyde. She was nineteen when she won the cotton crown and she recalls the excitement and the events she attended. '...I did mannequin parades, they had cotton balls, cotton weeks at Lewis's and Kendals, and I went all over Great Britain... I went to the Houses of Parliament and I had lunch with six cabinet ministers. Mr Ramsay McDonald was the Prime Minister and I had an interview with him He said he wished he was coming to the cotton ball that night. We had a ball at Covent Garden. Then I met Mr [David] Lloyd George. He had a feel at my dress and he said 'Is this cotton?' I said 'Oh yes'. He said 'It's lovely...I must get Megan to buy some of this.' However, Frances Lockett's experiences also give a glimpse of the depression from which the cotton industry was suffering. 'I went to Kendals...with the cotton weeks that we had. We had them all over the country you see, and I used to go for a week to different places and talk about the towels... [but] we didn't sell the cotton materials unfortunately...' (information from www.spinningtheweb.org.uk)